It’s a great vid, give it a gander!

I'm at a loss for words, click on the photo and hear it for youself

Yeap, this was my 15th Photoshop World and I have to honestly say, it was the best one yet! 36hrs later I’m still tired and trying to collect all my notes, thoughts and read through all the well wishes. And for those of you who couldn’t join us, you were missed and hopefully you can join us at the next one. What did you miss? One thing was Felix Nelson all made up for the opening ceremonies. And if that’s not enough, there’s this from our bud Allan.

Another was the Photoshop Guys, in fact all the NAPP crew, blow the roof off the joint from the start to get us all in the mood. And what better way then to have KISS (the Photoshop guys) hit the stage singing “I wanta Photoshop all Nite.” It gets you pumped to learn and share, inspire and have fun like nothing else! Give this a gander if you want to see more.

But one of the best parts of PSW though is the meeting of friends and the endless learning opportunities. Here that is all wrapped up in just one click. The one and only RC, a great friend of ours in front of the camera teaching as many as are watching. I can’t thank all of you enough for making this such a memorable event, I look forward to being with you again real soon!

Photos captured by D3s, 24f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

Photoshop World is where a bunch of mature, creative adults have full license to immature kids and have all the fun associated with that. The Keynote for Photoshop World is a great example of that, where the fun of being creative it taken to the limit. Here’s my dear friend Scott Kelby in make up prior to the Keynote.

Here he is with the makeup all done.

And here’s he whole gang, I mean band prior to going on stage. They did a great job and it was funnier then shit watching them perform. They do a tremendous job getting us all pumped and into the mood to share and learn. It’s just the first day but I already fill whipped by the time I get back to our room 16hrs after I left it. But I’ve lovin every moment of it!

Now those folks who are here at PSW, we have something special for you. he first 30 who walk up to either Sharon or Stephanie and say Purple Monkey Butt (I want it noted I did not come up with this secret word) will receive a free, one year subscription to our BT Journal which includes the iPad edition. Rock On!

Photos captured by D3s, 24f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

Yeap, the ditched us so we ditched the sun. Cara did a great job dancing to the light!

The light being a simple SB-900 shot through a Lastolite Ezy-Box. Stephanie had the Ezy-Box on a pole stand held just off stage left. A SD-800 was on the camera so we could control the light long distance. The camera was at -2, the flash at +1.3 with a 1/2 cut CTO doing the rest of the work. The only challenge was keeping a charge in the flash as it was pounded by attendees having fun. I want to thank Joe for being such a great and fun partner to work with, Cara for her immense talent and patience with us and finally the great folks who joined us for a marvelous day!

Photos captured by D3x, 200VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

What’s so great about working with Joe is we just can make so much happen in such little time when we have great elements to work with. The tow of us worked for the locations and the dancers and the rest, well, was like falling off a bike, simple!

So as the light slipped down towards the horizon, we worked with these very talented dancers with the red and the shadows to create simple drama.

Many felt uncomfortable with this at first until they started to think about design and shape and form and long lenses. The girls though like I said made it very easy by staying in the light as it changed and doing their profession of dancing on the small stage in front of a lot of lenses. It was just simply, great!

Photos captured by D3x, 200VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

A brief interruption in our trip to stop over in Vegas for a favorite semi-annual event, Photoshop World. We start always with a pre-con in which I am incredibly fortunate to teach with my dear bud Joe McNally. We had a great gang for the day who we took out to Valley of Fire. This is a gorgeous place snuck away in a corner of Nevada that gets little press. There are many great subjects here, one I like is looking at the “faces” in the rocks. See if you can see the little girl here blowing to make a cloud. Fun stuff!

Photo captured by D3x, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film

Keeping with tradition, my good friend Russell Brown & myself (along with Sharon, Jake & Tom) are on another of our pre-PSW adventures. For those of you who know Doc Brown, you know it is not, well, 100% normal. When it comes to Photoshop, he is brilliant. When it comes to being calm, well, that’s just not in his DNA. So our adventures are anything but quiet, in fact, quite the opposite. So now we’re out in the wilds of America and the first critter he sees, well, you can see his reaction. It’s going to be one heck of a ride!

The behind the scene joke to this photo is the amazement on his face is not for this pose, but when he heard I was shooting at ISO 200 at f1.4 at 1/8 handheld, he was just amazed I was getting a sharp image.

Photo captured by D3s, 24f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

Nik Software has announced their HDR Efex Pro. While you won’t be able to buy it until October, I wanted to gloat that I’ve got it now and it rocks! What you see here is a real simple handheld, three image HDR of the setting sun over the Sierra. No way you can get the sun, shadow and clouds in one capture so HDR was required. What makes Nik’s HDR a stand out is they use the same basic UI as in Silver Efex Pro, you have a whole bunch of previews on the left. You look for the one you like, click and bang, you’ve got it. And if that’s not enough, you have more sliders, U Point controls then in the cockpit of a 747 to fine tune your selection. What you see here is the Realistic preset and it worked really, really well. Once I have a copy of the program that I can share, I will create a how to video because this is a must. Oh yeah, it runs 64bit! Bitchin!!!

Photo captured by D3x, 18AF on Lexar UDMA digital film